David LaChapelle has spent much of his career photographing pop icons — among them Cher, Janet Jackson, and Madonna. For the cover of New York ’s “Fall Preview” issue, he added Charli XCX to that list, creating a photo portfolio that captures the fever-dream quality of Charli’s rise to superstardom. Here, LaChapelle explains how the concept came to life.
I’ve always loved the rawness of B-movies and tabloids and Hollywood Babylon. Charli’s had such a strong career, but this is a new level for her, and I wanted to do something that was kind of tabloid but also add some surreal elements dealing with the nature of how she’s exploded. The shoot is playing with those ideas in a humorous way.
The underwater shot — that’s the water birth of Charli into the bratosphere. On the cover, she’s escaping the paparazzi and running from the downside of fame, the tabloid side of it. And she’s broken free, but she’s still got handcuffs on.
It could be a B-movie poster, right? I didn’t put any context behind what she was being arrested for. She was just breaking the rules. Being brat and breaking the rules.
She’s sort of trapped by fame and all the tabloid photographers are chasing her. An animal trapped in the woods would bite off its own limb — she bites off her hand. As she lies on the stretcher, you see people still taking photos of her, the paparazzi and the fans.
People will watch the rise as much as they’ll watch the fall. Then she’s brought to the hos.